SMHS Alumni Network

It's been several years since we closed down the first SMHS alumni community web site. The challenge at the time was the low level of participation from users. But that challenge can hardly be attributed to the degree of interest of the then existing membership base. The Internet was new to the Philippines and, as matter of adoption, very few households had Internet access during those early years. Our first alumni community web site even preceeded Friendster. The very concepts underlying online social networking as we know it today hasn't really been laid out yet, but about a hundred or so of us were already starting to exchange messages through that first web site using a simple bulletin board system as platform. The interest was there, even during those early years. But there were just too few of us to make the interactions exciting. So we canned the project.

We are now in the middle of 2010. Online social networking has exploded. Venerable Friendster, the web site that started it all, is now practically dead. Facebook, with it's over 500 million users, now dominates the scene. Widespread Twitter adoption, among Filipino netizens, is probably also just around the corner. Almost everyone is now connected to the grid. On wireless networks and smartphones at that. The time is about right. We can now resurrect our old alumni project site and stay true to the notion that we SMHSers are not the types to be left behind. We are proud pioneers of change and early adopters afterall, aren't we? Of course, we are :)

In that spirit, we are currently working hard to put together a new web site that will reconnect all SMHS alumni from all over the world to each other. This new web site will be built brand new -- modern in every sense of the word. It will host features most heavy weight social networks have. It will offer services that all users deem important. And most of all, it will fully leverage existing technologies to provide each alumni member with a rich, friendly, powerful, and satisfying user experience.

Development is underway. We expect to open the web site with a limited invitation-only beta launch before the end of July 2010. The full access public launch is expected to follow a few weeks thereafter.

We would like to encourage all SMHS alumni to support this project. This is your web site. This is going to be our home in cyberspace. And, with your support, this effort is going to be the foundation of a future awesome online community -- a community built by SMHSers for SMHSers.